We seem to be in the middle of a Merchant Ivory revival. Last year, Criterion reissued their classic A Room With a View with a restored digital transfer on Blu-ray. Now Cohen Media Group, in the first of 30 of their films for re-release, presents a gorgeous new 4K restoration of one of Merchant Ivory's undisputed masterpieces featuring another E.M. Forster novel, Howards End, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of this transcendent movie.
Merchant Ivory is the film company created in 1961 by Indian producer Ismail Merchant, American director James Ivory, and in more than half of their 44 films, German Jewish scriptwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (she married an Indian). Merchant Ivory/Jhabvala is the longest partnership in the history of independent cinema, a genre they virtually invented. Their own cosmopolitan backgrounds led to the evolution of their iconic style: a period piece with strict attention to historic detail, lavish sets/locales, a refined aesthetic sensitivity, and first-rate actors portraying psychologically nuanced characters. Almost all their work derived from highbrow contemporary literary fiction, often classic books (reviving an old Hollywood tradition), chiefly Forster and Henry James. Merchant and Ivory were also long-term romantic partners, and many viewers have commented on the gay sensibility that pervades much of their work. Their English period (named because the films were based on English novels shot in England), encompassing Room With a View , Maurice (their only gay love story, via Forster's posthumous work), Howards End, and Remains of the Day (per the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro), is considered the peak of their creative genius, with critics expressing differing opinions concerning their best or favorite among the four.
Howards End is the saga of an upheaval in class relations resulting in a society in transition, beginning in Edwardian England right before World War I, culminating in the modernity of the 1920s (the same period as Downton Abbey ), seen through the entangled interactions of three families. Free-spirited, free-thinking sisters Margaret (Emma Thompson) and Helen (Helena Bonham Carter) Schlegel, representing the progressive middle-class, are the lynchpin characters who become involved with the wealthy, shy, but duplicitous business magnate Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Ruth (Vanessa Redgrave), as well as working-class Leonard Bast (Samuel West) and his mistress Jackie (Nicola Duffett). Helen has an ill-fated romance with son Paul Wilcox, leading to Margaret becoming friends with the ailing Ruth. Ruth dies, trusting her beloved country family home to Margaret. Henry intervenes surreptitiously to stop Margaret from obtaining Howards End, but winds up marrying her. Meanwhile, Margaret and Helen, in their liberal passion for the underclass, become friends with the upwardly mobile Leonard, attempting to induce Henry to employ him, with cataclysmic results. Who will inherit Howards End, a symbol for the fate of England in the 20th century? This becomes the pivot of the film, its implicit theme of the need for connection, as people from disparate worlds and clashing morals attempt to build bridges towards each other.
All the performances are impeccable, reflecting characters with complex emotional lives. The film was nominated for nine Oscars, winning three, for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Production Design, and Best Actress for Emma Thompson, making her an international star. Thompson, with her flighty, vivacious but sensible inner core trying to balance two different social worlds, grounds the picture, as does the luminous, ethereal Redgrave, espousing traditional English values despite only appearing in the first half. Bonham Carter is perfect as the idealistic, high-strung Helen, willing to become a social outcast to protest the poor treatment given the Basts. And Hopkins is the epitome of the rigid aristocrat who can't quite overcome his conformist, even reactionary impulses and allow his basic goodness to emerge, a character we should despise, yet wind up empathizing with in spite of his boorish behavior. Luciana Arrighi's production design is sublime, visually able to display the different ways of life of all the characters, aided substantially by Tony Pierce-Roberts' wistful cinematography, Jenny Beavan's nostalgic costumes, and Richard Robbins' atmospheric music. It was often said that Merchant Ivory productions were family affairs, as they used the same crew members in most of their films, and this was never more true than in Howards End, where everyone's love and devotion for the source material are evident.
The bonus features are outstanding, in particular a 2016 conversation with James Ivory (the sole survivor of the triumvirate) and Laurence Kardish, former Senior Curator of Film at the Museum of Modern Art, in which they discuss the relevance of Howards End 25 years later, essentially agreeing that Foster's societal critique still applies today; and a 13-minute poignant featurette of Ivory remembering Ismail Merchant, recalling their first meeting at an Indian consulate in 1959, his realization of all Merchant accomplished that he hadn't known at the time of filming, and his admission that he doesn't have the same desire to make films since Merchant, seeing to every detail so Ivory could focus on directing, died in 2005. There is a wink and a nod to their flourishing as a discreet but openly gay partnership in a homophobic Hollywood environment. No one today produces in the tasteful Merchant Ivory mold, and their sophisticated charm is missed. But fortunately, with the restoration of the exquisite Howards End, we can revel again in one of the best literary adaptations ever developed for the screen.